


The Welcome Curse My Sister Left Me

by LilyAngorian



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Anger, F/M, Passion, Resentment, Series 4 Spoilers, Some situations can only be avoided for so long, Tension, these two are killing me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2019-02-08 19:24:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12871356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyAngorian/pseuds/LilyAngorian
Summary: “Without you he falls apart, and without him…without him they’ll take us all.”





	The Welcome Curse My Sister Left Me

Michael’s bare chest painted with blood and bullets. 

No shadows here to wrap herself in, and in the cold light the voices wane, uncurling from her hair, peeling back from her skin. 

Every sound is lost in the sterile air, until she can’t even make out her own frantic pleading. 

Always fucking blood and bullets, sending you out of the world or dragging you back. 

She’s bare again now, in the clinical chill and the reeling rush of white coats. 

And there he is in the doorway, the last of her fucking strength, the cut-marble face she’s watched grow harder every winter. 

That wilful, scolded child staring out from behind milky-blue eyes, poised in the moment, shoulders forward like a fighter. 

When did he learn to stand so fucking still? 

He calls her name, and she doesn’t hear the words, just the whisky-rough fuck of his voice that always lingers in her ears. 

That tone she’d watched him cultivate from boy to man, death and lust and fury packed beneath easy assurance, and no way of knowing which was meant for you. 

As he pulls her away from the trolley, she lets him cover her hands with his and force her trust once more. 

He can promise soldiers. He can promise the head of every Italian alive. He can promise he’ll be back for her. 

And she knows he’ll be true to his word. 

Even as she'd whispered her prayers with the noose around her neck, it had been him brushing aside the sentence like dust. 

But the damage is fucking relentless. 

John stains a white sheet down the hall, Michael slipping fitfully between the room and somewhere darker, one foot on ether side of the threshold, 

and Tommy makes his promises and walks away, cutting through old wounds she’d half-healed. 

 

*****

 

“Pol.”

“I told you in there. A truce.” 

“It’s not enough.”

“There’s no negotiation. You had us all killed Thomas, remember?”

“You didn’t die in prison Polly.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“I know that you thin-“

“Don’t you fucking dare! Did you feel like God, Thomas? Looping those ropes, and then pulling them free?"

“It was the only way.”

“You’re still just a fucking boy. How can you be the one holding everything in place?”

“If we’re here together we’re-“

“-Strong? Safe? You don’t make me feel safe.”

“Pol, you know I can’t do this without you.”

“You’ve managed.”

“I’m on my knees Polly.”

“No. You aren’t.”

 

*****

He turns the key in the door behind him. 

The fire leaps in the hearth, and she leans against the back of the chair, arms crossed over her chest, nails digging deep into her elbows. 

He waits, a few feet in-front of her, and there’s that same stillness in him; the tension in the long, white lull between gunfire. 

It’s raining outside, the water cutting heavy against the windows, and his hair’s dripping lines down his cheeks.

She’s dry, the mourning-smoke still hanging thick on her dress, and her lips chewed half-raw, ringed with blood where they meet her tongue. 

Impassive and impassioned, they hold tight to familiar ground, the moment drawn out too thin. 

And then he forces aside the few inches between them, blocking the light with his mouth and his palms, and she thinks that if this is a vision, then the others have been so pale.

They bite back whimpers, but neither can silence the guttural hum that forces up their throats.

And she’s howling with it, and he’s falling apart in her hands, damp and fractured. 

Black lace weaves with the carpet, both of them begging in one breath and blinking in the half-light. 

Too close now to make out a line between them.


End file.
